An impressive press release last month may have escaped your attention during the holiday period. On Dec. 28, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. announced that 158 companies "committed in 2007 to create 22,627 new jobs in Indiana -- by 2012."

A skeptic would say, "Small potatoes when compared to the nearly 3 million jobs Indiana currently has." But such a view would be beyond skeptical; it would be downright cynical.

Let's put 22,600 jobs in perspective. That number exceeds the number of jobs added in Indiana in 2007 when job growth (December-to-December) was 5,800. It also exceeds job growth in 2006, which was 13,400.

The IEDC adds that since January 2005 (incidentally when Gov. Daniels took office), "nearly 500 companies have committed to create more than 60,000 jobs in Indiana." That number is more than twice Indiana's average gain in jobs (27,800) between 1990 and 2007.

No one expects all those new jobs to be added in a single year. But the aggregate number is impressive. The Hoosier state has gained more than 60,000 jobs only four times in the 17 years from 1990 to 2007.

The announcement by the IEDC is particularly promising because it seeks high-paying jobs in growing sectors of the economy with firms that are well-established. Coming as it does at the end of 2007, the IEDC report is most welcome because Indiana's gain of 5,800 jobs in the past 12 months gave us a job growth rate of just 0.2 percent, the fourth-worst record among the 50 states. Only Minnesota, Ohio, and Michigan posted lower job growth records.

Over the past 17 years, Indiana has averaged a 1.0 percent job growth rate. This earned our state the 39th place among all states. The nation saw an average job growth rate of 1.4 percent.

Perception of growth depends on not only the rate of growth, but also on the volatility of those growth rates. If we had a boom or bust economy, that would be high-volatility, leaving businesses and their workers with a great sense of uncertainty. Indiana ranked 12th in volatility between Maine and New Jersey.

On the positive side, in 15 of the past 17 years, we had job growth and only two years where the state lost jobs. But those two down years were in a row, 2000 and 2001, when we lost 104,400 jobs from our peak of 3,003,400 in December 1999. To date, Indiana's December employment has not regained that high level; in 2007, our number of jobs remained 17,000 below that peak.

Cautious Hoosiers will ask: What does it mean that nearly 500 companies have committed to create more than 60,000 jobs in Indiana?

The time frame for IEDC extends to 2012, when a second Daniels' term will expire. Are there any assurances that those 60,000 jobs will materialize? One of the firms on the list, GETRAG (1,400 automotive jobs promised for Tipton County), suspended construction recently. Of course, it is just a temporary glitch, something like a market correction, but what if ... ?

Opinions expressed solely are those of the writer. Morton Marcus is an economist, author and speaker formerly at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. He can be reached at mortonjmarcus@yahoo.com.